Tet Parade gets green light, with caveat

Jan. 10, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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A young dancer performs with the Trung Tinh Duong Lion Dance team during the 2011 Tet Parade in Westminster. The Westminster City Council this week voted to grant parade organizers a permit for a parade on Feb. 10, but community groups will have to raise the money for the event. FILE PHOTO: KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Youngsters get an up-close view as a parade lion dances along Bolsa Avenue during the 2011 Tet Parade in Westminster. FILE PHOTO: KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A performer dances alongside the Trung Tinh Duong Lion Dance team during the 2011 Tet Parade in Westminster. The Westminster City Council this week voted to grant parade organizers a permit for a parade on Feb. 10, but community groups will have to raise the money for the event. FILE PHOTO: KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A young dancer performs with the Trung Tinh Duong Lion Dance team during the 2011 Tet Parade in Westminster. The Westminster City Council this week voted to grant parade organizers a permit for a parade on Feb. 10, but community groups will have to raise the money for the event.FILE PHOTO: KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

WESTMINSTER – The annual Tet Parade is on. But the Vietnamese community has two weeks to come up with $60,000 to pay for it. Or it's off.

The City Council this week agreed to grant organizers a special event permit for the popular parade that travels through Little Saigon to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year.

But this year, the community has to pay for its own event. The city is broke. And the deadline is 5 p.m. on Jan. 24.

"Financially, this is not a problem," said Neil Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California.

The community recently raised some $200,000 in one month to donate to the victims of Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast, so raising $60,000 – even in a short period – is doable, leaders said.

Mayor Tri Ta and the council said they would proceed with plans for a parade on Feb. 10 that will draw bands, floats and some 10,000 spectators to Little Saigon, the nation's largest Vietnamese business district.

"I'm confident that the community will be able to raise the money in a timely manner," Ta said Wednesday night.

But the two sides may not be completely on the same page.

Organizers have suggested to the city that the coalition of groups putting on the parade this year has its own ideas, particularly on how to provide for security and traffic control. For example, they want to decrease the number of police officers, who are paid overtime, and add less expensive private security and additional youth volunteers from Explorer programs in Westminster and surrounding communities, said Ha Son Tran, vice president of the federation group.

At Wednesday's meeting, Nguyen began to suggest those types of revisions, but Councilwoman Margie Rice stopped him.

"If you stand out there and keep negotiating, you may not have a parade," Rice told him. "We intend to do it correctly, the way the city wants."

Police and traffic are the bulk of the expenditures. The cost for some 30 officers and eight non-sworn public service officers last year was about $20,000 and a contract for traffic control could be as high as another $20,000 this year, said Diana Dobbert, who heads the city's community services and recreation department. Some 80 Explorers typically help out, she said.

Organizers are welcome to provide additional volunteers and security, she said. But the city will not relegate police or traffic safety to another agency, she continued.

"Public safety is our top priority," Dobbert said. "There's no budging from that point."

The city has in recent years paid for the event but last year, faced with a $10 million-plus deficit, the city laid off 67 employees, eliminated festivals and parades, shut down its satellite office at the Westminster Mall and made other changes in City Hall.

Vietnamese American leaders said they applied for a special events permit in December. Originally, organizers wanted to host it on Feb. 9, the day before the Lunar New Year, but some merchants in Little Saigon opposed the event on one of their busiest days. Instead, the parade was moved to Feb. 10, which falls on a Sunday and the actual Vietnamese New Year – the Year of the Snake.

On Thursday morning, Nguyen went on Vietnamese American radio to announce the event. There's $10,000 in the kitty to kick off the drive. And organizers are looking for sponsors who can give the rest.

Committees and subcommittees already are in place to pull together the festival.

The Lunar New Year also will be celebrated with a festival. From Feb. 8-10, the Union of the Vietnamese Student Assn. of Southern California will host the annual Tet Festival at Garden Grove Park, 9301 Westminster Ave. in Garden Grove.

To contribute to the parade or for more information, call 714-892-2628.

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